Westbound Boarder

Are you kicking yourself in the bootie for not going up to the mountain enough this season?  No worries, there’s still time!  Mountains across America are extending their seasons thanks to late spring snow storms, and here in SoCal (don’t let the 70 degree days we’ve been having fool you) the resorts are still going strong.  Mountain High, for example, plans to stay open until May 2, making this their longest season in history, with a total of 186 days of riding.  The best part?  Starting Monday, lift tickets will be reduced to $35 for adults (regularly $55) and $25 for kids ages 7 - 12.

If you still plan to head up, though, I caution you to go early.  The spring sunshine definitely takes its toll on the hill, with small lakes starting to form in the lift lines by 11.  I’d recommend heading up bright and early (8ish - mountain opens at 8 on weekends and 9 on weekdays), hooking yourself up with a nice 4 hour lift pass, and getting the heck out by noon.  Next stop, an afternoon at the beach surfing, perhaps?

Some Friday news tid bits for you today; enjoy!

Links to Surf

• Surf + Travel + Documentary + Timmy Curran = Awesome! Timmy Curran’s newest venture “The Union Express,” a documentary that follows him along the California coast as he checks out the major surf spots, is set to be released on iTunes April 14.  Check out the trailer over at HUCK; I’m buying this one for sure!
• Win a 14-Day Trip To Greece: Wait a minute… say what?  This just in - Contiki Vacations, Diane’s Beachwear and FOAM Magazine are offering a chance to win a fourteen-day trip to Greece. The vacation package includes visits to Athens, Mykonos, Santorini and Ios, and a shopping spree at Diane’s to find that perfect bikini for sunbathing and island-hopping in style.  Sweepstakes candidates can submit their entries here.  The contest runs through April 2010 and the winner will be announced on Foam’s website May 5, 2010. The winner will receive one Contiki Greek Island Hopping trip which includes hotel accommodations, meals, a dedicated crew to show the sights and a $200 gift certificate to Diane’s Beachwear.

News Bits

• Check out Spring-A-Ma-Jig at Mt. High this Saturday: Not only is it Louie Vite ride day at High, its also the first annual 9of three) Spring-A-Ma-Jig rail jam and pond skim! (Apparently Vito’s a guest judge for the bikini contest).  Deets over at Mt. High’s Web site.
• The Dew Tour selects Las Vegas to host the final stop of the 2010 season: Action sports… Vegas… Best of both worlds! (Where can I sign up?)  Last week, the Alliance of Action Sports announced that it selected las Vegas to host the Dew Tour Championships (the fifth and final stop of the Tour), as well as the final awards ceremony.  The tour will commence October 14 - 17, 2010 at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.  Tickets for the 2010 Dew Tour will be on sale soon and will be available via Ticketmaster.com and Ticketmaster box offices.  Visit allisports.com for more information.  Full tour schedule:
  • Skate Open, ISF Skateboarding World Championships: June 25-26 Boston, Mass. - TD Garden
  • Nike 6.0 BMX Open: July 23-24 Chicago, Ill. - Museum Campus
  • Wendy’s Invitational: Aug. 12-15 Portland, Ore. - Rose Quarter
  • Toyota Challenge: Sept. 16-19 Salt Lake City, Utah - EnergySolutions Arena
  • Dew Tour Championships: Oct. 14-17 Las Vegas, Nev. - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

A local Mt. High rider recently sent me a video his friend created (featuring all local talent) and I loved it so much I thought I’d post and share with you all!  Very creative and different, and the featured talent is out of this world.  Enjoy!

ANTEBELLUM from Lennon Films on Vimeo.

Saturday was supposed to be the “Active Sponsor Me” competition at Mt. High, and I figured, “Hey, I haven’t done a comp. in a while, this one’s laid back and fun; why the hell not?”  So I arrive to the mountain and ask where I can find the registration table, only to find… the competition was moved?!  To Sunday?  A few days prior.  Seriously, who just moves a competition right before its about to happen (and not bother to change any of the posters - wait, correction, apparently the “Web site was updated.”)  I was a little irritated, especially since I now had to pay full price for a ticket on an 85 degree day (think: snow = lake by 11am).

So I was waiting in line for a ticket and this lady comes up to me holding a stack of tickets and says, “Hey, I see you’re waiting in line for a ticket.  Do you want a free one?”  Say what?  Thinking this was some sort of trick to get me in trouble by the snowboard mafia, I proceeded to grill her on the origin of these so-called “free” tickets.  “I got them for free when I put my kids in ski school, so I don’t have any use for them since I’m not skiing.”  Hm, likely response.  That is what the snowboard mafia would want you to think, now isn’t it?  But wait a minute, a long line in front of me, and a free ticket behind me…  hm, I’ll take my chances!  I’ll just have to whip out my judo kick for when the snowboard mafia jumps out from behind the trees and takes me down to snowboard jail.  Take that snowboard mafia!  (And just in case you were wondering, the ticket actually worked fine.  No hoax!  And I even made a new snowboard bud; nothing like bonding over a couple free tickets, right?)

So we all know how they saying goes… but on Saturday Karma totally worked in my favor for once!

And the second moral to my tale is that, although I did not get to watch the “Sponsor Me” comp. (boo hoo), Mt. High put together a dandy little video for everyone else like me out there.  SoCal has some awesome local talent, so catch it here!

Hot sauce and snowboarding … sounds like the perfect day, right?  This past weekend, I went up to Mt. High to watch the 12th annual Cholula Triple Air competition (also put on in part by Monster Energy and Powder and Sun ride shop), featuring some of SoCal’s (and even beyond) top amateur talent.  The Chiloula Triple Air is a “modified big air” competition featuring three huge jumps instead of just one.  Competitors came all the way from Vermont, Colorado, and even Norway!  And $25,000 in prize money was more than enough prize money to motivate competitors to throw down their biggest air ever.  Some of these guys and gals competing were unreal!

Interestingly, Triple Air was held at Mt. High’s East resort this year, which I really liked, partly because the course was built near the bottom of the hill, allowing for good spectator viewing areas, and partly because East is rad this year!  You can take the main lift up and hit 10 tables in a row - yes, 10.  In fact, I may never go to West again this season.  The competition course set included 3 hits - a launch box or rail to choose from, a 50 foot step down, and a massive right hip.  The theme for the day, though, ended up being pretty much “Don’t fall, win some dough.”  It seemed like every rider fell after the second hit, and without having taken a run through the course to see for myself, it looked like the landing got pretty chopped up the latter part of the day which may have exasperated this.  Or maybe the riders were just going way bigger than they were used to.  Either way, only the top competitors were able to stick all three jumps, which likely became key in judging competitors on their ability and style.

In the men’s heat, rider Trevor Jacob ended up taking home the $10,000 in cash, beating out last year’s winner Danny Toumarkine by a slight margin.  In the women’s division, last year’s defending champ. Stacie Anderson from Lake Tahoe took home the title for the second year in a row.  Lars Ellington from Mt. Baldy took home the best trick title, wowing the judges and audience with his massive 1080s.

As much as I love watching snowboarders compete in events such as these, I have to say, I am always impressed watching free skiers perform as well.  They go so much bigger and can pull some of the coolest tricks I’ve ever seen!  It was especially fun to watch the skiiers in this competition, namely because they were going so much bigger than the snowboarders, especially on the hip.

Final Results

Open Mens

1st Trevor Jacob
2nd Daniel Toumarkine
3rd Tyler Anderson
4th Cory Wetstone
5th Brandon Concard

Open Women
1st Stacie Anderson
2nd Nirvana Ortanez
3rd Isabelle Lalive
4th Micki Slchta
5th Jamie Madrid

Open Skier
1st Lars Ellington
2nd Jeff Johnson
3rd Robby Burleson
4th Chase Vance
5th Charlie Ellington
6th Mike Gonzales

Best Trick
Lars Ellington

Pics from our drive up to Mountain High on Saturday… amazing.  Valuable lesson learned - never go up to the SoCal mountains the Saturday after 4 ft. of snow arrives.  But, I suppose the estimated 9,000 people at the resort and the 4 hour drive home (yes, we moved about 1.5 miles in an hour) was well worth it.

Allright folks, get ready for some sick conditions coming to the SoCal mountains this week.  It’s finally snowing!  And with rain in LA expected to continue throughout the week, this should be the El Nino storm we all have been hoping for.  Mt. High has already seen 3 inches of fresh pow at the peak, with the base receiving a mixture of snow and rain.  The snow level is expected to drop to 5,500 feet tonight, making for tons of fresh pow tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week.  Bear, on the other hand, (while the temperature is 38F at the moment) is expecting 8 - 16 inches tomorrow.

Photo by Peter Parra

After returning from an amazing week-long vacation in Vail, CO, you’d think I’d want to spend the weekend resting (and doing laundry), right?  Well, that was the plan, but apparently it didn’t last for long. When I received a text Friday night at 8pm from my snowboard friend Matty asking if I wanted to ride Saturday, how could I say no?  My fifth day up in one week?  I’m on a roll!

I haven’t been up to Mt. High yet this season, so I bought a six time pass (pretty sweet deal, btw) and left my house at 6:15 am (ouch) to meet Matty at our little meeting spot on the way up to the mountain, right off the 15 fwy.  A few cups of coffee and one beautiful sunrise later, I knew it was going to be a great day!

Admittedly, after spending four days riding in the Colorado Rockies, the 12 inch base and slushed-out snow at Mt. High seemed a bit unappealing at first (the snow started out very grainy), but once the sun came out and softened it up a bit, it turned out to be an awesome, very fun day.  Riding High is just a lot different than riding at bigger resorts, namely because Mt. High is basically one, huge park, and there’s really not much free terrain to ride.  But I love park riding, so spending eight hours in the terrain park is fine by me.

The jumps and jibs were perfect, and the sunny, spring-like weather was even more perfect.  One really cool thing about Mt. High is that you can check out their interactive park layout before you go (which I did) and see photos/videos of all the jibs.  There was a lot of variety, and a good mix of easy to advanced features (and a lot of them!)  For example, if you start at the top of Chair 4 in the West Resort and head toward Upper Chisolm, you can ride down and hit 11 tables and several rails before you reach the bottom.  We spent most the day riding this run, followed by a nice, long break for BBQ in the parking lot.  The park crew was setting up for the Gatorade Free Flow tour slopestyle event (which takes place today) in the morning, so by the afternoon the course was open and we finished with a few runs through that park before heading home.

All in all, awesome day!  Oh, and it ended with a stop at grandma’s for dinner and laundry, so don’t worry, I did get a few good hours of laundry time in as well.

Now, I’m headed to Newport for an afternoon of skimboarding and sushi … I love living in a state where you can go snowboarding one day and to the beach the next

That’s right - tomorrow, Mt. High will officially be the first mountain to open in Southern California.  It will be open to season pass holders only, so either get a season pass or head up the next day.

Operating hours this week and weekend: 9am to 5pm on Thursday, 8:30am to 10pm on Friday, 8am to 10pm on Saturday, and 8am to 4pm on Sunday.

Thanks El Nino for bringing us some early season snow!  Who’s up for a little “haunted” Halloween shred sesh?

Last week, Mt. High ski resort (and my local mountain) announced that it will be launching an iPhone application with a release date of November 15.  Before you read any further, I’d like to preface this post with a “disclaimer” - I don’t own an iPhone.  I’ve never even used one less a few quick app tutorials. (Yes, for me the free company blackberry is a little more enticing at the moment, but that’s not to say I’ll never make the switch).  Regardless, I am more impressed each day by the technology and capabilities that modern smart phones bring to the table.

After reading up on Mt. High’s application (without actually having the opportunity to test it, first), I think it sounds pretty cool.  Some of the features include:

• Current mountain information such as snow conditions and trail openings
• Ticket price information and the ability to purchase tickets right from your phone
• Vacation planning resources, such as information on lodging, lessons, and upcoming weather
• An optional Powder Alert, where you can sign up to receive e-mail or text message notifications on new snow, ticket deals, and upcoming events
• Access to GPS guided directions, automatic dialing features, Google maps, and more

The App is $1.99 and can be purchased via iTunes or mthigh.com.

Obviously, this application is targeted toward the younger demographic - also Mt. High’s largest group of visitors - but is designed to improve everyone’s on mountain experience.  With an increasing number of people using the iPhone and associated applications these days, launching this app was a very smart move on Mt. High’s part, and I hope to see more resorts follow suit down the road (not for my crackberry-obsessed sake, but for everyone else out there).

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